While preparing last week’s Nalbound Object of the Week, I discovered another fascinating piece of nalbinding in the MAK. This week brings us a new (to me) Peruvian cap with figural work on it. In this case, it’s a lizard! You will need to go to the MAK’s online catalog to see a photo, https://sammlung.mak.at/sammlung_online?id=collect-100216, as the MAK’s photos are not CC or public domain.
Object: Cap with Lizard
Description: A brown cap with a row and the central top in cream and brown lizard with cream highlights standing on top.
Please note that sharing to other venues will likely be intermittent. If you wish to receive these each week, please remember to follow the blog. Patrons on Patreon receive early access previews, occasional extra details, and priority requests.
For this week’s Nalbound Object of the Week we get to get to see what is thought to be the earliest archaeological artifact to have its stitch analyzed, a sock from Egypt. Photos of nalbinding from the late 1800’s are rather rare. In this case, we also have the opportunity to see a more recent photo in the online catalog of the MAK in Vienna.
Fig. 28 from Antike Handarbeiten published in 1895.
Object: Sock from Saqqâra, Egypt
Description: A white wool sock with a black/dark brown toe and over the arch worked in a finer black/dark brown wool and a row of red wool at the cuff. The sock has a single wedge style heel and stops at the ankle. Current photos show that it has taken some damage since 1895 as the dark toe is nearly entirely missing and several rows near the cuff also show damage. Otherwise, it is in apparently the same position as it was when the first photograph was taken.
Dated to: 6th century
Find location: Saqqâra, Egypt
Earliest diagrams of nalbinding as analyzed from an artifact. Figs. 30-32 from Antike Handarbeiten published in 1895. Highlights by Anne Marie Decker
Material: Wool
Stitch(es) used: Mammen, F2 UOO/UUOO. Luise Schinnerer diagrammed the stitch found in this sock, but did so in a manner that while it produces the correct final structure, is opposite the direction in which we work this stitch today.
Inventory number: T 564
Current location: Museum für angewandte Kunst MAK (Museum of Applied Arts)
Some sources in which more information can be found:
Schinnerer, Luise. Antike Handarbeiten. Mit einer histor. Einleitung von Alois Riegl. Wien: Waldheim, 1895. [No ISBN]
Collin, Maria; ‘Sydda vantar’ in Fataburen; 1917; pgs. 71-78.
Noever, Peter ed. Verletzliche Beute: spätantike und frühislamische Textilien aus Ägypten = Fragile remnants : Egyptian textiles of late antiquity and early Islam. on the occasion of the “Verletzliche Beute/Fragile remnants exhibition” MAK Vienna, 07.12.2005-05.06.2006 Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz, 2005. ISBN 3-7757-1699-8.
Gagneux-Granade, Marguerite, and Anastasia Ozoline. “Quelques objets surprenants en textile non tissé dans les réserves du musée Bénaki” in ΜΟΥΣΕΙΟ ΜΠΕΝΑΚΗ 9, 2009 (Athens 2010): 99-111. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.12681/benaki.13
Please note that sharing to other venues will likely be intermittent. If you wish to receive these each week, please remember to follow the blog. Patrons on Patreon receive early access previews, occasional extra details, and priority requests.
From 1872 CE we get this week’s Nalbound Object sewn by P. Nilsson’s daughter in Äspö in Skåne Sweden:1 the remains of a beautifully colored singlad ball.
Description: Not much of the nalbound exterior remains, but what does remain shows colorwork in multiple patterns involving two colors being used in the same row in several places. The ball is 6.5 cm in diameter2; divided into 8 sections, each worked from the edges into the center. The center is presumed to be cork, wrapped with possibly flax cord.3 It was then covered in course cloth, partitioned into eights and then the Simple Looping outer layer was applied.
Material: The nalbinding was worked in multiple colors of wool.5
Stitch(es) used: Z-crossed Simple Looping, F1 O (determination from photo by Anne Marie Decker) called “langettstygn”6 [langett stitch] in Swedish
Singlade balls are very similar in concept and style to Temari balls from Japan. However, Temari balls primarily use wrapped patterns, while Singlade balls are worked in the Simple Looping structure that can be considered a variant of Nalbinding when creating a fabric, but embroidery when worked into the ball base as seen in some of the more complicated modern designs.
In 1932 Mina Lundberg of Gävle, Uppland, Sweden gave this ball she used in her childhood in the 2nd half of the 19th century to the Upplandsmuseet. It is made with a center made of a broken celluloid ball with peas in it. It otherwise made in the same way as the old catalogue records that peas would be put in a goose’s throat, one end stuck in the other, that was then wrapped in yarn and the singlade cover worked over it in buttonhole stitches. https://digitaltmuseum.se/011023861906/boll
Some of the wide variety of patterns that can be worked in Simple Looping on Singlade balls. Photo from a class that was taught at Brodericaféet på Regionmuseet i Skåne in 2018.
A pair of Singlad boll by Zadig Art purchased in the Kulturen gift shop while I was in Lund in 2023 to examine the mitten. I was so excited to find traditional nalbinding available. I had heard of the Skånsk tradition of singlad balls, but hadn’t seen them in person. The yellow and brown one on the left rattles. Photo: Anne Marie Decker
Please note that sharing to other venues will likely be intermittent. If you wish to receive these each week, please remember to follow the blog. Patrons on Patreon receive early access previews, occasional extra details, and priority requests.
